Spy Hard Read Free Page B

eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
    “Lucas sent me to find you.”
    “You shouldn’t be hanging around the house.” His voice dripped with disapproval. He puffed his chest out as if he wasn’t just another lackey, one measly step above Jase.
    “I thought you might have gone up to play cards with the guys in packing.”
    “Shot the dice with the idiots at the stables.” His grim look said he didn’t win. “Jorge got back. Says he saw another burned village to the south. Cristobal is definitely heading this way.”
    Which meant there would be a major battle in a couple of days.
    “We’ll take care of him.” Jase squared his shoulders in a macho display for Alejandro’s sake. But his mind was on the boy. He needed to get Mochi out of here at the first opportunity.
    He tried not to think of the crying woman whose sad eyes haunted him.

Chapter Two
    The woman on the balcony came to him in his sleep. Naked. The dark jungle whispered its mysterious song around them. Silver moonlight splashed on her skin, her long hair tumbling to her waist.
    Jase’s body turned hard with need, but for some reason he couldn’t reach for her. Then he saw at last what held him back. Thorny vines tied him to a tree. He watched, unable to move, as a black jaguar stole forward from the bushes and crouched, getting ready to lunge at the woman. Blood glistened on the animal’s muzzle. And as Jase looked around, he could see a small foot sticking out from under the bush where the jaguar had come from. Mochi.
    He woke to shouting outside the barracks, cold sweat covering his body. Sunlight filtered through the burlap curtains. Lucas rushed in, an extra belt of bullets swung over his shoulder, a scowl on his face.
    “What is it?” Jase grabbed his gun first, his shirt second.
    “We’re preparing for battle. Cristobal sent a messenger. He demands unconditional surrender.”
    A glance out the window revealed a man lying in the dust on his back behind one of the jeeps. A familiar knife protruded from his throat, the very one that Jase had traded for Mochi. Alejandro was always eager to score points.
    “And that would be the messenger?”
    Lucas flashed a ferocious grin and rushed on out the back door. Jase washed his face then followed after him, heading to the kitchen to see about the kid and get some coffee. Then he would go straight to the main house. The Don would be calling his people today, needing all his alliances to back him in the battle. Now was a better time than ever to plant that bug. They could gain some serious intelligence out of this.
    He strode through the long building he bunked in that resembled the Indian longhouses, a half wall of bamboo erected here and there for privacy. In other places colorful horse blankets hung from the ceiling to separate the bunks from each other. In general, the men didn’t much care about their lodgings. Anything was better than sleeping in the open jungle, at the mercy of the elements and the animals.
    He pushed through the door into the kitchen, which was little more than a large shack attached to the barracks. But he found the blanket Mochi had slept on empty.
    Before he could have gotten worried about the kid, the boy walked in through the back door, chewing on a large chunk of flatbread. The woman from the balcony last night stepped in right behind him, a hand on her round, pregnant belly the railing had hidden the night before.
    “Sorry, I’m—” She froze at the sight of Jase. Unease widened her big, thick-lashed Bambi eyes, the color of dark chocolate with gold specs that somehow made them mesmerizing. She pressed her full lips together as she drew back. She’d probably thought all the men were outside and had expected only Consuela in the kitchen.
    Once again, she saw him at his worst. His hair hadn’t met up with his comb yet this morning; his face hadn’t seen a razor in a week. He was unkempt and half-naked… And he couldn’t believe he was